New readers begin here: When the MetroStars were around, I anagrammed them into the RotMasters. Rots for short. A rather appropriate alias, it turned out, as the team stumbled and bumbled through 10 years of screw-ups, failures and farces.

There is a hallowed phrase in English soccer -- "You win nothing with kids."  A phrase that must have echoed thunderously around the ears of Aston Villa coach Paul Lambert Sunday as he surveyed the wreckage of his young team after that 8-0 demolishment by Chelsea.

If you watched last weekend's English Premier League game between Stoke and Everton (for your sake, I hope you did not -- this was just awful stuff) you will have seen, thanks to television replays, three examples of extremely violent play.

Allow me to present the latest (I think they're the latest) developments in the realm of soccer tactics and terminology.

The contrast at the College Cup bordered on the grotesque. From the sheer excitement and the unbridled, non-stop attacking action of the Maryland-Georgetown semifinal, the event quickly collapsed into the trite defensive boredom of the Indiana-Georgetown final.

A strange day, Saturday. A triumphant one for MLS and for David Beckham, yes. But a low-key sort of triumph, without the fanfares and the swagger that can so easily overwhelm such an occasion.